The existence of large number of rural workers without work is in itself a proof that India has failed in providing guaranteed work despite the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) 2005. Rural workers’ agitations for the last few years in the National Capital Delhi and across the country demanding work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) Scheme is another proof that we have failed in providing work.

However, the Centre has come forward with a logic that MGNREGA fund has been reduced in the Union Budget 2023-24 on account of decline in demand. Government has resorted to this logic to legally shield itself from the accountability under the NREGA for not providing work to one who demands for it. Since providing work is directly linked to demand, the government has been doing everything to suppress the demand in the first stance.

Many strategies have been adopted by the government to suppress the demand for years, and the latest in the series is the National Mobile Monitoring Software (NMMS) App and Area Officer Monitoring (AOM) App launched on May 21, 2021.

The claimed purpose of launching NNMS App was taking real time attendance of workers at NREGS worksites along with geotagged photograph to increase citizen oversight of the programme besides potentially enabling processing payments faster. AOM App was launched purportedly to record their findings online along with time stamped and go-coordinate tagged photograph for all the schemes of Department of Rural Development – MGNREGS, PMAYG, and PMGSY. It was said that at the launch that it would also enable not only better record keeping of inspections by filed and supervisory officials but also facilitate analysis of the findings for better programme implementation.

Just as an angler uses bait in a hook to catch fishes not to feed them, the claim was intended by our master political angler, not to provide more fund, more work, more wage, and more workdays, but actually to reduce them. The expenditure on MGNREGA was 1.11 lakh crore in 2020-21, that had to be enhanced on account of the pandemic from Rs61,500 crore. The Union Budget 2021-22 to reduced it to Rs73,000 crore in the budget, but the Centre had to spend Rs98,000 crore, again due to the second wave of the pandemic. Union Budget 2022-23 was again kept at Rs73,000 crore which was about 25 per cent lower than the expenditure. It has been further reduced to Rs60,000 crore in the Union Budget 2023-23 which is 18 per cent lower than the allocation for the last year and about 33 per cent lower than the Revised Estimate of Rs.89,400 crore. It meant the Centre allocated only 67.11 per cent of the revised estimate for the year 2022-23. It shows the intention of the Centre to reduce funding for MGNREGA in spite of higher demand that is reflected in every revised estimate and the Economic Surveys of the Centre admitted this fact.

Demand rose despite a large number of MGNREGA workers were excluded by the malfunctioning, both intended and non-intended, of the technology in place and inability of the workers to make their attendance in the app due to their illiteracy and lack of mobile phones due to poverty. Moreover, many of the times the online linking of Aadhar and attendance did not function due to connectivity related issues for which the Centre is alone responsible. It actually has led to large scale exclusion of MGNREGA workers from work guaranteed by law.

The Centre knows this very well and even the NREGA’s Management and Information System (MIS) called NREGASoft, an online application that is being used from the launch of the scheme itself, accepts indirectly that there are connectivity issues, and there are also problems with the states who have adopted various kinds of models for reporting such as in house using its own staff, using contract data entry operator, outsourcing data entry, arranging entire ICT infrastructure at block level through private parties etc to address the need of content management. All these are leading to several flaws due to which MGNREGA workers are worst affected.

Since MGNREGA workers are generally unable to handle the NNMS App their formal request for work is submitted by some agencies or middlemen. A study conducted by Azim Premji University in 2022 has exposed the flaw and asserted that actual demand for work is much larger that what the apps showed. The study had pointed out that many households would like more NREGA work but they did not know how to apply, and might not even be aware that they have a right to apply. In practice, employment demand generation depends more on the initiative of state governments and local authorities than on formal work application online.

States are not given enough fund by the Centre and they themselves are fund starved. Therefore, technological infrastructure and management are mostly on adhoc basis – chiefly on contracts or outsourced. These are generally handled at block level, since even many panchayats and villages do not have enough facilities what to talk about registering attendance or giving wages at the workplaces as it has been envisaged but bogged down by connectivity issues which remains poor.

MGNREGA is a centrally sponsored scheme on the basis of Centre and States share in the ratio of 75 and 25 per cent. The Centre has not been releasing funds to the fund starved states. As per information given by the Centre in Rajya Sabha they owed Rs6,157 crore to 14 states as on February 3, 2023, which included payment of wages and material. Therefore, the apps are not even helping in timely payment, and the Centre has given an explanation that payments were stopped on account of various reasons including violation of rules and widespread corruption in states, especially opposition ruled states.

Non-payment of wages to the MGNREGA workers for months has intentionally been continued only to discourage the rural workforce so that they might not come to demand work under law. It is despite the Supreme Court ruling of 2016 that not paying wages to MGNREGA workers for months is enforced labour that is modern day slavery under international conventions. According to the law, MGNREGA workers are to be paid within 15 days, and in case of delay in payment, the Centre has to compensate them. The Apps are managed by agencies in such a way that this law is not violated on record but on the ground level large number of workers remained unpaid as the government itself admitted.

How badly the apps are being managed is self-evident is the fact that government could provide only 42 days of work by January 20, 2023, while only 52 days were provided in 2021-22. Without the apps 51 days work per household were provided in 2018-19. Therefore, these apps cannot be defended on the ground of performance. It should be understand in the backdrop that law provides minimum 100 days of work as against the demand of 200 days with increase in wage. The allocation for the year 2023-24 can support not more than 20 days of work for about 16 crore of active rural workers enrolled under the scheme. How them the app can support more workers without enough fund?

A bigger issue involved is Central control on MGNREGA scheme through the app that frees the local, state, or central level officials from accountability for denying the worker’s right to work. System is blamed and the issue of non-implementation of the law is hushed up.

It is in this backdrop, the demand of NREGA Sangharsh Morcha for withdrawal of the app is worth considering. They have stepped up their agitation which included other demands including increase in MGNREGA wages and number of days to 200. They have already launched their 100-days sit-in protest from February 13, 2023 at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. Morcha has threatened widespread agitation across the country if their demands are not met.